Find CAD Tutorials from popular design and manufacturing software such as AutoCAD, CATIA, Inventor, SolidWorks and Mastercam. Tricks and tips are available to aid the user in becoming more proficient in using the program of choice.

Thursday, November 13, 2008

This is a demo of how you can create corners in a V5 sketch automatically. This eliminates the tedious task of going around clicking each and every individual element. Note that the 4 fillets are also linked together in a formula.

Wednesday, October 29, 2008

In SolidWorks drawing mode, Occasionally, users need to add a custom column. For example, you can add a material column to your Bill of Materials. Now, it is quite the procedure to do so. The column does not appear automatically. you need to specify a material for the part in question. Then, you need to enable the custom property so that the BOM can see that entry in the custom field back in drawing mode.

Tuesday, October 14, 2008

Friday, October 10, 2008

Often, many users need to have more control over certain aspects of drafting settings. Most CAD systems allow you to change any of those settings as long as you're an administrator in Windows. However, the story with CATIA V5 is different. You need to go through a series of steps in order to make changes to areas such as drafting standards or come up with your own company standard. The video below shows how to do that in a simple and easy way. The best part here is that you don't need to be an Administrator in Windows. So, you don't have to beg your IT personnel for a special log in.

Monday, October 6, 2008

Many of us miss having the "AutoCAD" like shortcuts in CATIA V5. If you were a proficient user of AutoCAD, you probably like to have something similar in V5. Here are the steps:

- Goto the Customize option throught the tools menu.- Select the commands tab, then locate the tool that you are looking for.- In this case, we select the Space Bar as an accelerator for the "Fit All in" tool that we frequently use to zoom all. This customization works in both 2D drawings and 3D parts and assembly modes. The demo video shows how to do it.

Thursday, September 25, 2008

Many users think that opening V4 files in V5 should be very easy since they both come from the same company. This is not necessarily true. V4 had a different file structure and was based on an older architecture . V5 was revamped for the Windows Platform (V4 ran on the Unix OS.) This demo shows how you can open a V4 model and successfully turn it into a V5 component. The interesting bit here is that we can do that intelligently. In other words, be able to preserve the part history that consists of model features and sketches.

This is a demonstration that shows how to create an adaptive sweep within the Generative Shape Design workbench. The beauty of this tool is that it allows you to vary the section parameters independently without effecting the rest of the model. This is especially practical in situations where the profiles are similar but need small modifications. That, in turn, saves the user from creating separate sketches to describe the different sections.

Wednesday, September 24, 2008

This is a tutorial of how to create a complete design from scratch in CATIA V5. It covers basic sketching, Part modeling, Assembly and 2D drafting. The video was a student request that had trouble piecing the whole "puzzle" together. The purpose of this video is to help such ones grasp the fundamental steps required in creating a proper product.